Thursday, December 2, 2010

Headlines - Thursday November 2

Greenwald on the moral standards of the WikiLeaks critics

Do you have that principle down? If "a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail" because of the WikiLeaks disclosure -- even a "single one" -- then the entire WikiLeaks enterprise is proven to be a "disaster" and "Assange is a criminal" who "should be in jail." That's quite a rigorous moral standard. So let's apply it elsewhere:

What about the most destructive "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" the planet has known for at least a generation: the "human disaster" known as the attack on Iraq, which Klein supported? That didn't result in the imprisonment of "a single foreign national," but rather the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent human beings, the displacement of millions more, and the destruction of a country of 26 million people. Are those who supported that "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" -- or at least those responsible for its execution -- also "criminals who should be in jail"?

The stay-at-home-daughters movement, which is promoted by Vision Forum, encourages young girls and single women to forgo college and outside employment in favor of training as "keepers at home" until they marry. Young women pursuing their own ambitions and goals are viewed as selfish and anti-family; marriage is not a choice or one piece of a larger life plan, but the ultimate goal. Stay-at-home daughters spend their days learning "advanced homemaking" skills, such as cooking and sewing, and other skills that at one time were a necessity — knitting, crocheting, soap- and candle-making. A father is considered his daughter's authority until he transfers control to her husband. .. Integral to Vision Forum's belief about female submission is making sure women are not independent at any point in their lives, regardless of age; hence the organization's enthusiasm for stay-at-home daughterhood.

A massive replica of Noah's Ark stretching three stories high and the distance of two football fields may soon be on its way to Northern Kentucky, where it will make its home as the staple of a creationist theme park, Ark Encounter. In an interesting twist, the creationist park is supported by the state's Democratic governor, Steve Beshear.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the theme park's creators are currently seeking state tax incentives that could allow them to recover 25 percent of the facility's cost. Some are questioning whether such a stimulus would violate the separation of church and state.

Tax issues aside. . ."Ark Encounter"? Really? That's the best they could come up with?

What would you call this latest atrocity in Kentucky?

Homo Neanderpaulenis, New Species of Genus Homo, Now Devolving in Kentucky

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RedState: It's time to ban Muslim immigration

RedState has come up with a fun, new, very academic policy idea: Let's stop letting Muslims immigrate here! That will solve all of the problems on the problems list, such as economy and fetus death. "By now it is evident to all but the most brassbound liberals, incorrigible in their refusal to face hard facts, that Islam contains within it a sizeable faction of determined men whose politics derive from the warmaking doctrines of the Jihad. Wherever Islam is, this faction will be also." All groups of people have a few bad apples. (Who eventually turn into violent bad-apple cider? Sorry, that's a dumb cliche.) But Islam's bad apples are Muslim, so they shouldn't be allowed to be Americans, according to America's official blog, RedState. Plus, there are lots of other fun rules the government should enact to control current Muslim Americans! READ MORE »

GOP Senators: We Will Block 100% Of All Bills Until Bush Tax Cuts Are Extended

Today all 42 GOP members of the Senate issued a letter declaring that not one single bill (including DADT) will be considered until Congress agrees to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. Because when you're out of money, the thing to do is cut your income. And so much for yesterday's bipartisan summit.

"[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers," the letter reads. "With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike." It was penned by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and signed by all 42 Republicans. According to the AP, which first broke the news of the letter, and portrayed it as a GOP effort to block all Dem initiatives unilaterally, the START treaty would be exempted. But everything else -- particularly DADT, unemployment insurance and the DREAM Act would be ensnared.

And once again the billionaires of America fuck over the rest of us.

There was a time, not that long ago, when you could tell the difference between men based on their chins. There were men with strong chins and there were men with weak chins. And then Mitch McConnell came along, the man with no chin.

The deficit commission is now recommending that the wealthy receive an even greater tax cut than they already have by nearly 10%. They also recommend cutting taxes for corporations. Wait, is this a commission for how to balloon the deficit or reduce it? I am confused now.

The top tax rate is currently 35 percent and is scheduled to rise to 39.6 percent in 2011. The commission would cut that rate to between 23 and 28 percent, while shaving between seven and nine points off the corporate rate.

The commission does propose taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, a move that would result in a higher liability for the wealthy. It also eliminates some corporate tax breaks. But those losses for top earners would be more than offset by their tax cuts.

So can this commission be entirely discounted once and for all? This commission is very close to self-parody territory and something you would expect to see on an episode of SNL rather than making serious policy suggestions.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker began firing 15 percent of his police department today, illustrating the actions that cities in the second-wealthiest U.S. state are being forced to take to confront lower aid and tax revenue.

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You want cops to protect your home, firefighters to put it out if it catches fire, and FEMA to rebuild it if it floods, right? Who the hell do you think is gonna pay for it?

Heh ... that idiot Curtis Sliwa and his Guardian Angels took to Newark streets 2 nights ago to supposedly help protect the neighborhoods thanks to the police layoffs and one of them got mugged. Might wanna raise taxes and rehire those cops before the rest of your tax base moves out to safer climes.

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"The 52 members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) took the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks, a total of 88 worth $100,514,200."﻿ Ah, hypocrisy, thy name is Teabagger!

"I did not do so last year because I'm not going to ride in a Christmas parade that doesn't recognize Christmas," he said. "I am hopeful that the good people of Tulsa and the city's leadership will demand a correction to this shameful attempt to take Christ, the true reason for our celebration, out of the parade's title. Until the parade is again named the Christmas Parade of Lights, I will not participate."

What a silly man. The parade, by the way, is on 11 December…which last I heard, is not Christmas.

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While unemployment insurance payments are running out for millions of Americans who lost jobs due to no fault of their own, the Afghan ambassador to the UN is living in a $4.2 million dollar Manhattan condo on our dime.

While Americans are standing in line for the local food pantry, we're paying for this guy's mahogany kitchen cabinets.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) received a letter signed by all 42 Senate Republicans, which stated, "[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers."

But Reid plans to file cloture this week on at least three measures: the DREAM Act, collective bargaining for firefighters, and a 9/11 health bill. A senior Democratic staffer told The Huffington Post that it was likely to happen tonight or tomorrow. If it happens tonight, any of the bills could come before the Senate for a vote on proceeding to full debate as soon as Friday or possibly early next week.

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Michael Moore: Five Questions the Mainstream Media Won't Ask About the Wikileaks Release

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Robert Reich has so much good shit on his blog that I can't begin to pick just one thing to post. Bookmark him and visit often.

What we've observed these past two years is a political party that knows nothing but scorched earth tactics, cannot begin to see any merits in the other party's arguments, refuses to compromise one inch on anything, and has sought from the very beginning to do nothing but destroy the Obama presidency. I see no other coherent message or strategy since 2008. Just opposition to everything, zero support for a president grappling with a recession their own party did much to precipitate, and facing a fiscal crisis the GOP alone made far worse with their spending in the Bush-Cheney years. There is not a scintilla of responsibility for their past; not a sliver of good will for a duly elected president. Worse, figures like Cantor and McCain actively seek to back foreign governments against the duly elected president of their own country, and seek to repeal the signature policy achievement of Obama's first two years, universal healthcare.

Expect it to continue. They've paid not price, the media is wholly uninterested in calling them on it, and the corporate powers that decide these things are thrilled. The Republicans were just rewarded with a massive victory in the midterms, and our President, as much as I love him, seems intent on avoiding conflict to the point of being a one-term punchline.

Not to go all Eeyore on you, but I've about abandoned all hope with the news the Democrats are going to cave on taxes. I'm astounded that they are going to fuck this up. Literally, they have to do nothing and the tax cuts expire. It will take actual work to fuck this up, but they are going to pull it off. Why they won't listen to folks like Kos, let the Bush tax cuts expire, and then craft their own tax policy and dare the GOP to vote against it is beyond me.

I thought maybe after being the GOP's prison bitch for the last two years, the administration would come out swinging and put up a fight. Instead, it looks like they intend to shiv their supporters.

Because if they can't cut taxes for the wealthy, they are not going to do anything

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We don't have to worry about prosecuting Assange - Russia's going to kill him. "A senior Spanish prosecutor told the US Embassy in Madrid that Russia, Belarus and Chechnya had become virtual "mafia states", new disclosures of classified material by Wikileaks show. A cable also questions whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is implicated in the Russian mafia. Another reveals that a powerful Ukrainian businessman told US officials he had ties to Russian organised crime. The documents are among hundreds being released by the whistle-blower website."

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We're saved!

House GOP ends climate-change committee because it's not real

Because Republicans won a majority in the House in the 2010 elections, climate change no longer exists. Hooray! Jim Sensenbrenner announced that Republicans will be getting rid of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming when they take over, so it held its last hearing today so everyone could sign each other's climate-change committee yearbooks or whatever. So why does this very important issue no longer need special congressional attention? It turns out global warming never existed! Whoops! Why didn't those silly Democrats listen to the Republicans? Here they are holding hearings about the future of the Earth itself, and the whole time our goofy planet wasn't warming up at all! What a hilarious blooper! READ MORE »

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Rich people officially win class war

The House is expected to vote today on extending tax cuts for the greediest 98 percent of Americans, "the middle-class" — the war merchants, sweatshop owners and oil barons who have gang-raped all six continents while simultaneously ruining any hope of a peaceful, simple existence for America's persecuted minority, the struggling single mom billionaires. But don't worry, you don't need to sign the Amnesty International petition to "stop the exploitation of trillionaires," not yet at least! Because that Orange Thing knows this vote is nothing more than "a Washington stalling tactic with job-killing implications," which is totally unacceptable. Are there any jobs left to "kill" at this point? No, they are all already dead, since "the economy has such limited job openings that even if every open position in the country were filled, four out of five unemployed workers still wouldn't be able to find a job." READ MORE »